The present invention relates to a process for producing L-arginine, which is an amino acid useful as a medicament, food and the like.
Heretofore, L-arginine has been produced by fermentation methods or by extraction from proteins. As the fermentation method, a process using a strain resistant to an arginine analogue [Agricultural & Biological Chemistry, 36, 1675 (1972), Journal of General & Applied Microbiology, 19, 339 (1973), and Japanese Published Examined Patent Application No. 3391/1973]U.S. Pat. No. 3,723,249; a process using a microorganism belonging to the genus Corynebacterium and having resistance to a pyrimidine analogue (Japanese Published Examined Patent Application No. 50479/1982,; and a process using a strain carrying a recombinant DNA comprising a gene involved in the L-arginine biosynthetic pathway and a vector DNA (Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 66989/1985, U.S. Pat. No. 4,775,623) are known.
Further, known is a process for producing L-lysine by fermentation, which employs a strain of the genus Brevibacterium resistant to S-2-aminoethylcysteine [Journal of General & Applied Microbiology, 16, 373 (1970)].
There has been a demand for a process for producing L-arginine with a higher yield and at a lower cost.